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Welcome to part II of our blog post on our road side farm stand. We hope to share some insights into effectively running an unmanned roadside stand to sell your produce, meat, preserves, wood crafts, or any other item fit for roadside commerce. Our roadside stand has been a blessing to our small diversified family farm operation.

Our roadside stand runs on the honor system. We do not hire anyone to stand and exchange money, rather we trust our farm supporters to pay the asking price into an honor box, which is under lock and key. When your hunger for vegetables grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers brings you to The Dancing Farmer farm stand at MacCurdy Farm the first thing you will notice is the absence of any workers in it. Do not be alarmed, we have a system in place. The honor system.

The decision to employ the use of the honor system was born out of necessity as we needed to allocate money towards infrastructure and operating costs for the first year of small fruit and vegetable production on the farm however, charity is very much an aspect of the system because we want to see people eating well as well as make them feel trusted. At the moment we employ pickers and farm hands when needed but we couldn’t justify paying someone to work the stand 10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. After a little research online and some conversations with food conscious people about the honor box system use in other parts of our country, we decided to go ahead and try it out. We had nothing to lose.

Our prices are listed on the chalkboard on the wall as well as marked on any packaged produce items. A customer simply has to do the math. Time to put those math skills you told your middle school math teacher you’d never use to work. To keep things simple, our prices go to the 50 cent of a dollar. We use competitive pricing bearing in mind that we charge a premium on most of our products as they are all grown according to organic principles. However, we understand that times are tough in our economically challenged area so we try to keep our prices affordable so that everyone can eat healthy in our region. You can always pay more if you feel the prices are too low but we ask that everyone please honor the asking price. From time to time we have talked to people who were a little short on change. We’ve told them to simply pay the difference the next time they pass by. On a couple occasions patrons have brought the money they owed to our booth at the Restigouche Farmer’s market. That’s honesty! We love it.

Honor Box Code

Pay the asking price

If you are short on change, pay the difference the next time.

Cash only.

Place unwanted greens/bad veggies in compost pale

Spread the word.

Feel free to leave comments.

We’re watching you, just kidding, we trust you.

This year we stocked the produce stand with the following items: Strawberries, lettuces, spinach, rainbow swiss chard, radishes, tomatoes (different varieties), hot peppers, green peppers, carrots, beets, kale, dill, field cucumber, English cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, yellow beans, pickles, assortments of herbs, and hanging wave petunia baskets. Everything sold well with little waste. Any waste (swiss chard, tomatoes, lettuces) went to the pasture turkeys and chickens as an added source of nutrients. Minimizing nutrient loss is essential. Given the location of our farm stand at the base of the farm lane, we restock, empty the honor box, and check the shelf life of the produce periodically through out the day. We plan on expanding the variety next year. After a few conversations we made note of some regional culinary favorites that we will grow next year, which included potatoes, onions, zucchini, squash, and corn. Regretably we only grew some of these items for family consumption this year.

Although work takes us many other places around the farm we always take time to stop and chat with customers especially if we feel they might have questions or have some confusion over how it all works. A small diversified farm has a steady stream of jobs and tasks, much like the old time homesteaders, but much of our operation is set up within sight of the stand so we are always handy unless we are on our hay, garden, or woodlot acreage. Availability of produce items is indicated in hand painted wooden signs attached to the exterior of the stand. As items come in to season, the signs go up on to the wall.

As with any new venture, there is always room for improvement. Next year we will increase our signage on the sides of the building. We will have to level off the site with pea gravel as mud and wet became an issue this year. Improved shelving and a double bi-fold door will also be an upgrade. Currently, we stock the stand in the morning and bring back into store every night.

For more information on the story, you can check out an article by Bridget Yard of CBC on the Dancing Farmer.

After a quarter annual hiatus from the blog, we are back with some updates and ready to roll out some new blog posts in the next few months as we build towards more changes and additions on the farm. Despite our absence from the blog, we’ve continued to plug away at farming on MacCurdy Farm. Winter has a tendency of recharging the batteries, when sickness is held at bay, and tends to reinvigorate the body. Lots of quality time snowshoeing on our family acreage helped to reinstill a hope in the members of the family to further establish our transitioning farm.

Multi-season farming has been a goal for Jonathan and Justin since they began to pursue their separate farm endeavours. Without abandoning previously established elements of the farm, Jonathan and Justin have decided to put their knowledge sets together to increase productivity on the family farm and partner together in the birch syrup, small fruit, pastured poultry, and greenhouse operations. They’ve both come to the realization that together they can accomplish much more in seasonal aspects of the farm that require man power and brain power. Who better to partner with than a brother or sister?

Warm me up Scottie!

Justin and Jonathan will be tackling birch syrup production beginning in March when the sap starts to run. They’ve set amibitious goals and have made filling last years crowdfunding backers the first priority for this season, with birch syrup for the market and other stores within Canada to follow. We’ll be putting out an informative blog series on everything pertaining to birch syrup production in the coming weeks for those of you interested in trying the product. An informed consumer is more likely to be a satisfied consumer. We have hopes of potentially sharing our knowledge in the school systems in years to come as well. We’ve started to prepare our evaporator, sap collection equipment, and temporary sugar shack for our big boil downs to come. The next few weeks leading up to March Break/Study break will be busy, to say the least.

In other news, Justin and Jonathan have added a wood fired furnace to the greenhouse to get an earlier start in march with herbs, cut flowers, tomato and pepper plants, and some in ground cold hardy plants for the table. In our winter with the greenhouse, we are pleased to announce that we’ll be able to produce a substantial amount of produce, herbs, and flowers. Our goal is to open up the greenhouse as flower shop in the Spring to provide hanging baskets, cut flowers, container herbs, and other floral arrangements. More to come in the coming months.

We will be sharing more about our seasonal adventures on MacCurdy Farm/Nature’s Estate Farm in the near future. We apologize for the hiatus from the blog. Jonathan will hopefully be able to contribute his keen knowledge set on everything pertaining to birch syrup in the following months. Please look for another tab on the website related to birch syrup.

MacCurdy Crest Dartboard Cabinet

Taking care of health and family relations have been a priority for us this past year. Justin has kept busy with teaching school and some small carpentry projects, Jon is constantly studying his craft and mom and dad are busy being busy. Together, they are very excited to tackle birch syrup, small fruit production, market gardening, our cow/calf operation, pastured poultry operation, and greenhouse growing in the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2016. We are hoping to satisfy the local palates of our devoted customers and locavores. Until we get to see you at the market this Spring, enjoy some of what’s left of Winter in our beautiful region in Northern New Brunswick.

Beef and Barley soup is, without a doubt, my favorite winter comfort and home remedy food. If the pot has soup in it after two days, send a search party, because I usually like the pot to finish. My love for this type of soup originated with the Campbell’s Soup variety and now, just as I did then, I can’t stop eating it until the pot is empty. Even better than that, the nutritional elements of this homemade soup far exceed that of any canned variety. It’s breakfast, lunch, supper, and in-betweensies when I make this soup. Hope you enjoy this hearty traditional favorite of the MacCurdy family!

Homemade Beef Stock

You will need a bag of 2 lb soup bones.

On a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, bake the soup bones for 45 – 60 minutes until nicely browned at 350 degrees. Some people suggest longer at higher temperatures. You want the bones to be nicely browned before adding them to your soup pot,

Ingredients

2 onions chopped coarsely

2 carrots chopped coarsely

2 stalks of celery chopped coarsely

1/4 tsp of summer savory

1/4 cup of vinegar (Draws minerals out of the bones)

I bag of browned soup bones

1/2 tsp of sea salt (optional)

Preparation

Cook in a 4 quart soup pot. Make sure that the bones are completely immersed in water. Bring all ingredients to a boil. Turn down and simmer for a minimum of 12 hours (I did it over night) and up to 48 hours. The longer it cooks, the more flavor emerges. Skim the scum as you simmer. Remove the bones and give to the dogs for a treat if they are still hard. I used a soup ladle to fill freezer containers with the excess stock that I didn’t use in the beef and barley soup.

Beef and Barley Soup

Soup is Served!

Ingredients

8 cups of homemade beef stock

8 cups of water

1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (You can use a smaller can if desired)

1/4 tsp ground celery seed

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/4 – 1/2 tsp. of sea salt

1/2 cup of pearl barley (Don’t use too much)

2 cups of stewing beef (cooked or uncooked)

1 cup of chopped carrots

1 cup of chopped celery

1 cup of chopped onion

Prep

In a large soup pot (4 quart), add your beef stock, water, diced tomatoes, and spices. Saute the vegetables in a separate pan or simply add them to the soup after it has been brought to a slow rolling boil. Add your beef (I’ve used uncooked stewing meat and leftover roast on separate occasions although I prefer cooking the stewing beef into the soup. Add the 1/2 cup of pearl barley and cook the soup for 45 – 60 minutes. Taste to check to see that all ingredients are tender and cooked. Serves up to 12 individual bowls.

Serves well on cold Winter days and during cold/flu season. Spruce yourself up with this homemade belly warmer. Finally, a big shout out to Mark Hengst for his cooking wisdom for producing healthy soup stock.

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The Fall of 2014 was our inaugural pumpkin picking at the farm. We planted dual-purpose (carving and baking) organic Howden pumpkins, which many use as Jack-O-Lanterns but can also be used for pies. However, it’s been said that they make the best pumpkin jam. 120 pumpkin plants were planted late this Spring in hopes that there would be a pumpkin patch for families in our area. In keeping with our start small/grow big natural farm philosophy, we felt that a 100+ pumpkin plants would allow us to gauge interest in farm activities based around the pumpkin patch, provide pumpkin picking over two weekends, and give kids and parents an opportunity to step outside of their daily routines to have some fun at our farm.

Cucurbits!

This year, we had a photo zone set up, a guess the weight of the pumpkin contest (won by Annie Robichaud this year), and a feeding area set up with our young pullets (laying hens). Our feedback form allowed us to gather ideas for next year’s event. We’ll have signage at the base of our road and parking signs as well. Others suggested hot drinks, baby chicks, a photo of the MacCurdy Farmer with a cutout for pictures, and a hayride. Also, given both my mother and I’s educational background, we’ll have information and activities centered around the cucurbitaceae (gourd) family. We’re thinking along the lines of a blown up picture matching and an information sign on the life cycle of a pumpkin, . Don’t forget, pumpkins are native to North America so it would be interesting to learn a little more about their nutritional value (organic) and how they grow. We’ll make sure that these elements of the experience exist during next year’s pumpkin picking. A perfect blend of education, family time, and fun on the farm.

One of our proud customers

Pumpkins retail for $3 (small – under soccer ball size) and $5 (medium and large). At this time, we do not sell wholesale. However, we have not ruled it out for next year as our current plan is to grow at least an acre of pumpkins. For those of you planning on picking a pumpkin, please remember never to carry the pumpkin by its stem. The weight of the pumpkin can cause the stem to break off, sending the pumpkin to be pureed instead of adorning your entry way. In the spirit of making more pumpkins available to additional customers, I’ll be capping the number of pumpkins per person to no more than 3 for pumpkin picking.

Ol’ Sir Howden

We are located at 29337 Route 134 Point La Nim, NB. Look for an old barn and a green farmhouse on the south side (not the bay side) of the old road (Route 134). The farm is situated between Methot Road on the east (Dalhousie way) and McNeish Bye Road (Dalhousie Junction way) on the west.

Guess Howdy’s Weight

Next year, we will be planting Howden, Tom Fox, and New England Pie pumpkins, which all turn orange. We will also have white varieties like Polar Bear and Moon Shine, as well as miniature varieties like, Jack-be-little and baby bear. Finally, for the sake of attracting customers we will also grow the Atlantic Giants and Big moose giant varieties. It’s going to be an exciting year of pumpkin growing and picking. Our seed will be sourced from either Veseys or Johnny’s Selected Seeds, depending on where organic seed can be sourced. We look forward to having you to the farm next year, 2015, for a day of farm education, enjoyment, and entertainment,

White pumpkins

More pictures to come for those of you who emailed or posted your Jack O’Lantern creations to the Facebook page. The first five designs will make it onto the blog and our pumpkin picking page.

Point La Nim, New Brunswick is not only home to our small diversifying family run hobby farm but another local family run business, Hengst Quality Sausage. In the name of collaboration, we teamed up with the Hengsts this end of summer to produce our first turkey sausages from MacCurdy Farm turkeys. I know, just like Pavlov’s dog, I’m drooling at the thought of it too.

This summer, while the turkeys grazed on pasture in our fleet of pastured poultry pens (aka. chicken tractors), an idea came to mind. Small scale farming always has room to consider value adding. Those of you caught by the addictive game, Hay Day, on your smartphones, will quickly understand the concept of adding value to a farm product. For example, pumpkins retail for $3 – $5 (depending on the size) but they can be value-added in the form of jams, pies, cakes, and painted Jack-o’-lanterns. Value adding allows us, in the case of pumpkins, beans, and strawberries, to find a return on our perishable products that might not sell at our local Farmer’s Market on any given Saturday. Turkeys, on the other hand, require some more expertise. Namely, quality production from our neighbour’s up the road.

Market days at Restigouche Farmer’s Market have their ups and downs for all vendors. On those days when the crowds are waning, I usually saunter over to the Hengst Sausage booth to toss ideas around with Mark and have a tasty mild italian sausage (my favorite) off their grill. Our conversations cover a lot of topic areas, mostly related to food, but on one occasion we discussed some possibilities for our larger retail turkeys that might not sell. The turkey sausage idea was born. Through many conversations with Mark and Jane, I’ve realized that they are just as passionate about locavorism and small sustainable family run businesses as I am. Like us, they endorse buying seasonal local farm products and, like us, they understand that supporting small farms like ours boosts our local economy and funnels money back into the hands of farmers to help nourish the people of our region. So, I jumped at the idea to try something new. I love novelty.

As I came to find out from Mark, and his wife Jane, turkey sausages are quite common. We talked at length about producing the best product we could with the turkey meat and settled upon mild Italian turkey sausages. A bit of spice is nice. To share in the experience of sausage making, I carved all of the meat off of the thawed turkey frame and boiled the flesh off of the bones (You can use up to 10% cooked meat in a sausage). The meat, fresh and cooked, was bagged in freezer bags. We bottled the remaining turkey broth as stock and have decided to sell it at the market for all of you scratch soupers out there. I am a strong believe in using everything from a turkey and a chicken. It’s healthy and you pay the animal respect by eating all of it. A quick trip to deliver the frozen meat to the Hengsts and then the magic could happen, sausage making magic that is.

The before picture.

One of the most endearing qualities about Mark and Jane with their sausage business is their openness and willingness to talk about everything related to their operation. In my opinion, it is a reflection of the knowledge they have required over their 20 + years in business and that passion that so often accompanies the entrepreneurial spirit. They love to do what they do and they aren’t ashamed to share it. They are exactly the type of people that we would want to collaborate with on a project handling the meats of our labor. Their openness has allowed many people who grow and raise their own food in this region to create variety in their culinary selection. Hamburgers, sausages, and steaks are all equally at home on the bbq grill.

Hengst Quality Sausage

Hengst Quality Sausage is a family owned business. They use recipes that are over 60 years old with only the best ingredients available. As Mark says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.” Isn’t that the truth. Mark and Jane’s respect for the older traditions of sausage making are very apparent. You can see it in their diligence and attention to detail in making and cooking their sausages. Mark and Jane have been stuffing sausage goodness for over 20 years. Now, thanks to their automatic stuffer, they can produce sausages at an accelerated rate getting them to grocery store shelves and home freezers at a much quicker rate. They also have a variety of other food products available from beef jerky to smoked meat.

Mark’s passion stems from his roots in sausage making. His father was a butcher and a sausage maker who worked as a chef in many of the finest hotels across the country of Canada. Today, Mark continues to refine his craft as a next generation sausage maker. Their business continues to evolve in a shrinking market via many pathways including word of mouth and social networking sites like Facebook, which can be found by searching their business name. Their business finds success through the support of family and a collective effort to make quality the word that stands out in their business. You can find their sausages and other products at the Restigouche Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning from 8 – 1 pm just across the way from our market booth. Just follow your nose, it’ll take you to sausage heaven. Trust me, I’ve tried every sausage they make, including our MacCurdy Farm turkey sausage, and all of them carry that taste that makes you want to go back for more.

Italian Turkey Sausage

I think it would be safe to say that both of our families could be considered Bay of Chaleur locavores who seek to provide tasty and healthy food products for the omnivorous diet in our region. That is what excited me most about collaborating on this project with the Hengsts. Tradition and innovation both play an important role in how our businesses evolve in our region. There must always be a respect for those generations who broke ground ahead of us and a spark within us that seeks to make refinements and improvements while we are at the helm in hopes that something exists for the next generation of farmers and sausage makers.

MacCurdy Farm turkey sausages are available at the Restigoucher Farmer’s market. Make a note of stopping to have a chat at one of our booths the next time you visit. Conversation creates relationships as well as opportunities. It did for us at MacCurdy Farm when we chatted with the Hengsts.

We will soon have a drop down menu on our MacCurdy Farm website entitled, Friends of the Farm, that will share more details concerning Hengst Quality Sausage products as well as other local businesses who use our products in their food creations. Look for this added site feature in the very near future.

Hay season is upon us. We are just finishing up our first cut for winter hay storage and feed. Late summer/early fall will bring us into our second cut, which we feed at pasture. The old adage reads, “Make hay when the sun is shining.” In terms of haymaking, truer words were not spoken. A quality hay harvest requires good weather. Sunshine, drying winds, and properly timed cutting all lead to maximizing the quality of mixed hay. As you’ll notice in the above photo, we make square bales and stack them on a hay wagon. It’s hard work, but with the best view in Northern N.B. as the back drop of our hay acreage, how can one complain?

Our hay fields are a mixture of (1) perennial grasses like timothy, brome grass, orchard grass, (2) legumes like white and red clover, and (3) fescue. Our hay fields have not been turned in decades so there is some vetch and other weeds in our hay, which the cattle will eat around or, if it smells good, chew it up and add it to the cud. Smell, more than taste or appearance, is often the determining factor for a cow when it comes to eating forage. MacCurdy Farm cattle are notoriously picky eaters. On occasion we’ve purchased hay during shortage that no amount of molasses or shredding would make palatable. But, I digress. Our hay, from our acreage and rentals in the community, has served our cattle well over the years but next year, if our plans come to fruition, we’ll have some new hay sewn in the community to hopefully improve the digestible crude protein content in our hay. Higher protein equals faster daily pound gains in our animals, which means a greater return when they go to table.

Making hay involves multiple steps:

Cut the hay. We cut our hay when the conditions are right and the weather forecast gives us a window to harvest.

After several hours of drying time, or the following day depending on the time of the cut, we ted (spread newly cut hay) the hay with the tedder. This exposes more of the surface area of the grass and legume to the sunshine and breezes.

Rake the hay. The rake implement, which is wheel driven, forms a windrow funnel that allows the wind to dry the hay before baling.

Bale the hay.

Collect the hay with the tractor and wagon and bring it back to the hay barn for storage.

I’ve learned a great deal this summer, having dedicated all of my time to farming in place of other extra-curricular activities, about the intricacies of farming. Making hay is largely dependant on fine tuned machinery. This summer, we had some issues with our haybine aka. cutter/mower that forced us to replace a busted hydraulic hose and broken hub. Thankfully, a few phone calls and the parts were at the farm within a few days, so we didn’t lose any time making hay. Dad is very mechanically inclined and i’m learning, more from watching than doing, about machinery maintenance and how to problem solve in a pinch. That being said, it seems as though my father’s generation has difficulty letting go of the reigns. They carry an attitude of only they can do it right, so you’re stuck in the shadows learning visually. Most people learn across multi-modalities so I’ve joked with my father that if I were ever to apply for a job on a farm elsewhere and share my experiences with respect to my abilities operating and maintaining machinery, i’d have to say, “I watched my daddy do it.” That comment, in and of itself, would terminate the interview. Job opportunity gone. However, at the age of 32, I can say I’ve learned a fair amount about farming, and even though I did not attend agricultural college (I chose education in place of my acceptance to study animal science at NSAC), my experiences on the farm have enriched my knowledge of the land, animals, and machinery.

The summer of 2014 was not one of drudgery and digging deep into energy reserves and spiritual strength. This year, I hired two young lads to help me wield hay bales in the hay field along with help from family members. Good help is hard to find but we lucked out this year in finding helpers that could keep up with the MacCurdy work ethic and stamina in the hay field. We don’t brag about much, but our bale throwing prowess and ability to get the job done, even under the moon light, is something we take great pride in doing. My father did it for years with his mother driving tractor while he piled. I did it over the last couple summers jumping in and out of the tractor, alone, during days where the bales seemed like they’d never end. I’d be exhausted, wiped with sweat dripping off my brow and a sluggish posture, and my father would say, “Don’t rely on your body to get things done, the body can only go so far, but trust your spirit to help you finish.” Amazingly, it worked. Believing that you can accomplish something at all costs, helps you to forget about the pain, allowing you to put your body on autopilot and complete the task at hand. All the while, forging your hands into grippers, blasting your forearms into swollen bulbs, and pumping your lungs into air purifiers. On one occasion this summer, one of our farm hands, sore from making hay the day earlier and feeling beat said, “I need to build up my stamina.” I replied, “Making hay is all about pace. It’s like running a race. You can’t win a marathon by sprinting from start to finish.” The hay field, like life, has many lessons to be learned.

Over the years, I’ve seen many people grip hay bales the wrong way. Before heading out to the field with our hired hands this summer, I taught them how to grip a hay bale, pile a hay bale, throw a hay bale, and treat a hay bale. Learning how to properly handle a hay bale is the key to an injury-free day of work. Throwing a hay bale is very technical and it is my opinion that more people should incorporate functional strength tasks like splitting wood, making hay, logging, and lobster fishing into their life experiences. Forget about cross fit and think about farm fit/manual labor fit. People will absolutely exhaust and gas themselves in a gym but never develop functional strength. So, when the day comes that something heavy has to be lifted, pushed, or pulled, they find that their bench press doesn’t do squat…pun intended. Back to hay bale throwing 101. When you grab the twines of a hay bale, your hands should be just outside of shoulder width apart with the hand on the side that the bale will be thrown on the twine closer to the body. The other hand positions on the outside twine away from the body. As in baseball, you load your weight on your back leg, bringing the bale in a slight twisting position to the back foot. Spot the target for the bale, explode off of your back foot in the direction of the target. Reach up with the bale, releasing the back hand and then front hand in close proximity of time, to the sound of the twine plucking off of the hand closest to the target. The whole time you’re stomach muscles are tightened to counteract and stress on the back. In a nutshell, a great core exercise. I spent some time teaching other way to grab and pile bales because every tip and method that facilitates speed of harvesting gets more hay in the barn. Some of you may chuckle to yourselves about a proper way of making hay, given that mechanization and invention has greatly reduced the amount of times a hay bale is touched before it finds storage, but until we purchase the coveted thrower for our baler and a wagon to go with it, we’ll continue to pick bales up and put them down, over and over again.

Gym or hay field?

Finally, hay making is one of my favorite times of the year. A full barn of hay means another year that our cow calf operation survives and thrives in Point La Nim, NB. I look forward to the laughs we share in the field, the completion of each load of hay that is unloaded on the thrasher floor, and the memories that we form as a family. A Shamwow and a bottle of Mr. Clean couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face as I watched my niece and son run through the field to kick down the bales that were standing on end. My sister, brother, and I did the same thing when we were youngsters. Some bales don’t fall flat on their bottoms, and stand on edge, which would cause us, like wolves with the scent of blood, to sprint as fast as we could to knock down as many as we could in the hay field. We didn’t need video games to have fun. Our feet carried us to it. As always we’d stop for supper, made by the family matriarch and resident farm cat expert, Grammy MacCurdy. A quick recharge for the body, inspection of the animals basic needs, and then back at it until the baler quit or the sun set, which ever came first.

2013 was a year of novelty for MacCurdy Farm. 2014 has brought it’s own new additions to the farm grounds. The school year is winding down with assessments, school trips, and other educational activities each with it’s own stresses. Meanwhile, our diversifying farm continues to provide it’s own busy work. We are ready for the arrival of our 200 meat king chicks this saturday. I completely overhauled the roof of each triple p. The tin had to be removed, new rafters installed, and gussets nailed to reinforce the load bearing capacity of the roofs during our heavy snowfall winters. I’m confident that the improvement in the design will withstand next winter. However, i’m keeping my fingers crossed. We don’t house anything in the triple p’s past the first snowfall, which means we only have to worry about structural damage.

Newly renovated portable chicken housing

Our egg wagon is coming along nicely. The frame is up, the rafters are on, windows and doors are framed, and the nesting box is nearly complete. The board siding is complete, the tin roof has been installed. We just have to construct and install a door and it’s ready for pasture. I’ve found, given the limited amount of time I have to devote to growing the farm infrastructure, that starting a project immediately after another project has been completed, greatly improves productivity. Perhaps, I’m feeding off of my natural propensity to always be working but I find that when one takes the time to get another project off the ground as the other finishes, one can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. An egg wagon, for those of you who may have not heard the term before, is a chicken coop on wheels. The egg wagon is constructed from wood and bolted to an old wagon frame at the farm. It will house 30 – 50 hens the first summer on pasture, and 50 – 75 hens the second summer. Weight is an issue as the wagon has to be physically lifted at this time to be hitched to the tractor. We constructed all walls and rafters with 2 x 2 lumber and the window openings will only have hardware cloth over them, no windows, to minimize weight for the time being. We have scrap tin that we’ve used for the roof, as well. The name of the game is minimal weight. Eventually, we’ll mount a trailer jack to the wagon frame.

Pastured Egg Layer Palache for the Summer

Egg Wagon nearing completion

In terms of our pastured egg production, there are two issues we have to solve. (1) We need a B100 solar energizer to charge our electric poultry netting and (2) we are waiting on our heritage breed chicks to come to laying maturity so we can provide more eggs at the Restigouche Farmer’s market. In our first year of breeding chickens, we currently have 40 chicks that we are raising to be layers. All roosters will go to table. I have one last hatch planned to start within the next two weeks to produce additional Black australorp hens and then the incubator goes into storage for the Fall and Winter until next Spring. Patience is necessary as we continue to develop our flock. Patience on the part of the farmer who has to wait 22 – 26 weeks for the hens to reach laying age and patience on the part of the consumer in understanding what is involved in producing hen fruit (aka. eggs). We apologize for any shortage of eggs at the Restigouche Farmer’s market this Spring and Summer and look forward to bringing more of our eggs into your kitchens this fall.

I am also putting out a call to anyone with a portable chicken processing unit (scalder, de-featherer, processing cones, processing table, etc.) to contact us at the farm about processing our heritage breed roosters, and potentially our turkeys later in the year. We’d be willing to talk price and dates. We’ve collectively decided that it’s time to butcher our roosters that we will not be keeping for breeding purposes. In the process we’ll eliminate the noise commotion on the farm. It’s hard to make the decision but to prepare your roosters for the table but it’s something that has to be done once they’ve reached the desirable weight. Most importantly to us, it has to be done ethically. We don’t want some gunslinger with zero respect for life processing our chickens.

In other news, our pastured meatking chickens and turkeys have adjusted nicely to their daily salad bar on pasture. Thankfully, we’ve had very few issues with lameness, limping, an leg problems. Our hospital pen has a few in it for the time being and I pray that they’ll rehabilitate and regain their strength. Water and feed will be the key for the next few days and Lord willing they will survive. Our goal at the beginning of the year was not to lose a single bird to sickness, injury, or predation. They’ve been going through alot of feed (25 – 35 kg /day) and water given the recent spike in the heat. Thankfully, with our fourwheeler and wagon addition to the farm, it has become alot easier to fill up the waterers as we leave a 55 gallon drum of water next to the PPPs on pasture. Once we purchase bulk feed, I’ll be leaving a 55 gallon drum of bulk feed in the pasture to further lessen the impact on the body. One really needs to develop means of minimizing the amount of physical exertion on individual activities so energy can be put towards multiple tasks. I sometimes cringe at the working methods of the older generation. I look at them with great admiration and profound respect for the sacrifices they make, but on the other hand I’m always looking for ways to minimize the impact on the body so that we can further diversify our farm operations. The old adage says, “Many hands make light work.” In my circumstances, only my hands do the work when it comes to the chickens and turkeys (sometimes with the gracious help of my wife or father), so the many hands option is out the window. If I didn’t minimize the amount of physical exertion on my body, I’d be burnt out, without accomplishing my goal of providing healthy food to people in our foodshed. Don’t get me wrong, I love work and in farming the work never ends but sacrificing healthier working alternatives for pride and a “that’s the way it’s always been done” mentality is bad for business. Writing metaphorically, would someone rather stare at a stagnant mud puddle or a moving brook? One is teeming with life and forever changing it’s composition, while the other dries up, is sometimes restored, and has no life in it. The key in all this, is help. A successful family farm needs help, from every member, young and old.

The key word in this post is motion. Everything must be kept moving on the farm. From the locomotion involved in daily farm chores, to moving the pastured poultry pens, to exchanging advice, caveats, and reminders. A farm without motion, is not a farm at all. Hayseason is just around the corner so look for another blogpost on haymaking on MacCurdy Farm in the very near future. Finally, I am taking orders for chicken and turkey on our facebook farm page (MacCurdy Farm), on our blog website, at the Restigouche Farmer’s market, and by phone at 506-684-2297.

Spring has always been a season on MacCurdy Farm that is synonymous with life and new beginnings. It’s a time of the year when earthy smells emerge from beneath a blanket of ice and snow and, inside the barn, our cows enter the last phase of their gestation period. It takes roughly 9 months for a cow to go full term and in our case, with Hereford cross animals, approximately 285 days depending on the day that the bull serviced them. The ideal goal is for the animal to deliver the calf unassisted without going over the gestation period. The threat of dystocia, difficulty delivering calves, is magnified each day that an animal goes past its due date. Spring time calls for vigilance and continual observation of the animals throughout the day.

We do not use artificial insemination. We use a breeding bull, from our line breeding program, which is changed every 4 to 5 years. At this age range (20 months to 5 years), bull fertility is still strong but bulls can become ornery around the higher age range and a little too big to handle. Farm safety is always our primary concern. The bull services our cows (approximately 15 – 20) each Spring, Summer, and Fall. We bring our animals into the barn to allow us to give proper care to our calves and calving mothers. For example, unlike the Belted Galloway and Scottish Highland breeds, our calves could never withstand our Arctic climate and long drawn out winters outside. Once inside the barn, dad and I can look for the tell-tale signs of parturition. I’ll begin by naming the few that I’ve learned through oral tradition from my father and some from scholarly research.

Development of an udder that becomes more and more turgid. However, development of the udder itself is not sufficient. The teats must fill as well.

Small-sized bowel movements due in large part to pressure on the rectum from the calf in the birth canal.

Elevating the tale or keeping the tale to the side of the vulva and blood enlarged vulva lips.

Restlessness. A cow, especially a first time calver, will repeatedly get up and down and/or pace.

Release of the cervical plug. (The mucous plug blocks the calf from external infection.) This can be an indication of impending calving although it may happen several days before birth.

Relaxation of the pelvic ligaments. If one feels the indents on either side of the tail above the hips, you will find two indents that get deeper as calving gets closer. Labor will usually begin about 12 hours after complete relaxation of the pelvic ligaments.

Optimally, we want cattle to deliver unassisted and only under the watchful eye of the herdsman or farmer. However, this is not always the case, especially with first time calvers. Dystocia, or difficulty calving, can present a serious threat. Some symptoms of dystocia are malpresentation and prolonged calving time (up to and over 8 hours). The normal presentation of a calf in the birth canal has the feet followed by the head, shoulders, hips, and hind legs. Anything contrary to this positioning is considered malpresented or breached. We cull cows that run into frequent calving problems such as a repeated uterine prolapse or early abortion.

Having delivered more than a handful of calves by myself and assisted in delivering others with my father, we have become very familiar with sterile techniques for manually inspecting malpresentations and pulling calves out. It is important to note that upon assisting a cow with a delivery, pulls should match the cow’s contractions. Otherwise, uterine torsion or potential damage to the uterine lining may result. Calves should be pulled at a downward angle and with enough force to help the cow pass the shoulders and then hips of the calf. The sooner the calf exits the birth canal, the better in terms of health for the cow and calf. Time is of the essence. I have seen a large variety of malpresentations including retained legs, anterior presentations, and posterior presentations. Each presentation requires diligence and care while trying to deliver the calf. One must always exercise caution when straightening a leg or head, being careful not to tear the uterine lining.

A few different malpresentations in cattle calving.

Anterior presentations require removal of the membrane around the nostrils once the head has emerged and are generally done with ease unless it is an oversized calf, which can happen with an early calving heifer. We pull straight until the shoulders have passed and then down to leverage the animal out of the birth canal. Posterior presentations are always worrisome. They require a great deal of strength, without chains, to get the hip past and must be removed as quickly as possible so that the calf does not inhale fluid. There have been a few instances when the calves have defecated due to the pressure on the abdomen while we pulled the calf out. But, there is no room for laughter. Joy only comes when we have the calf with its mother. After the calf has been delivered we sometimes tickle the nasal passage with straw to stimulate breathing and in dire circumstances, begin CPR. My father has performed CPR on a calf on more than one occasion, sometimes keeping the other from the brink of death and other times losing them after a long hard-fought battle. Dad’s calling was realized in the form of a herdsman delivering calves. He dedicates his life to these animals, who in turn give their lives for us and our community. He has performed CPR on a calf for up to an hour, held a prolapsed uterus in his arms to keep it clean for a couple of hours until the vet arrived, nursed ill animals back to health, and always to the glory of God. At times, calves can be born stillborn but we never give up on a calf. All life is precious and precarious. Just recently dad and I delivered a posterior presentation (breach) and the calf came out not breathing. Dad immediately started to gently blow in the nostrils while he felt for a heart beat. I then took over giving small exhalations into the calves nostrils until finally the calves lungs filled, his eyes blinked, and his reflexes kicked in. It was beautiful, as it always is when we welcome a new calf into the world.

First heifer calves of Spring: Ellie and Annabelle

One of my favorite stories about calving came from my father who was following the impending calving of one of our cows. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of the ordinary, until a voice came to my father’s head saying, “Help me, I’m dying.” Dad immediately sprung into action and found that the calf’s hoof was retained keeping it from entering the birth canal. Some of you, while you read this, may say to yourself, “This is preposterous, how can that be? Where’s the science behind this? You may muse to yourself, maybe it was just his inner voice responding to a multitude of environmental indicators that pointed to a troublesome delivery.” At any rate, I accept my father’s story at face value, even with my own doubts, because of the intensely spiritual experience of birth. I have been overcome with tears of joy and sadness after delivering a calf. There is something to be said about having a hand in assisting a calf into the world. The birth may be sterile, but the experience is not. It brings a great deal of warmth to one’s heart to watch a newborn calve blink it’s eyes and suckle for the first time.

Destiny – all eyes, ears, and nose.

Developing nicely and always listening

Maternal instincts vary greatly among cattle in the herd. We never give up on helping to form the bond between cow and calf. Sprinkling oats on the calf, hydrating the cow with several pails of water, and watching the calf lay close to the cow all play an important role in facilitating a bond between cow and calf. The cow will often tongue bathe the calf, helping it to dry off, and further cementing the bond between cow and calf. Just imagine the neuronal synapses firing away while the calf learns the sensation of touch. Within hours, sometimes days in the case of a hard labor, the calf can be found in his pen of straw, standing for the first time. Falling for the first time. Standing a second time. Falling a second time like Bambi on ice. I always imagine a web of neuronal firings taking place inside the calf’s brain while his/her legs feel the weight of gravity and body weight for the first time. It is simply amazing how quickly a calf learns to bring their muscle movements into control. Clearly, a survival instinct that exists, in greater strength, in the wild today. The process repeats itself until finally the calf stands strong and is ready to suckle. We usually kneel beside the calf for the first week of feeding until they are able to stand alone and drink on all four teats. It’s laborious, but it’s a necessary scaffold for the newborn calf.

Cameron, the fairest of the bunch.

Calves are a welcome addition to our herd every year. It signals the arrival of Spring and brings a great deal of love and laughter to the farm as we care for the animals while they develop into animals that we will befriend and then give their lives to us so that we may raise a healthy meat product for people of the Restigouche region. It’s a part of the cycle on the farm. If anyone is interested in visiting the farm to see the baby calves, we will begin to open up the farm to such visits towards the end of May, when our farm grounds have dried up extensively.

My grandmother likes to throw little tidbits at me every now and again, often in the form of jokes or old sayings from the Miramichi where she grew up. I’m not sure why she does it, but her wit brings a great deal of emotive response from me. Perhaps, this is one of the many ways she exudes her kindness and caring attitude. I am amazed by her resiliency and her strength of mind. Her mental faculties, especially memory, are phenomenal. I’ve told her that I hope I have the same wits about me when I am her age.

Some people tell jokes to bring the limelight onto themselves while others use humor selflessly to brighten a person’s day. My grandmother knows the power of laughter, in any moment, to generate happiness in those fractions of our day when fatigue, apathy, or stress weigh us down. Recently, as I prepared my eggs for the cartons, she called out to me from her rocking chair, “Justin! What did the chicken say when it layed a square egg?” I paused, caught off-guard by the joke, and tried to solve the humorous riddle. I came up empty. “Ouch!”, she laughed. She did this all in stride while she sat, pulling on her winter boots in preparation for a walk to feed the cats in the barn. She doesn’t skip a beat. That joke completely turned my day around and although our communication was fairly brief, it gave me a brief hiatus from the mental stresses of getting things done in a short period of time. I have a window of opportunity, from 4 pm to 8 pm everyday after school, to build infrastructure, give our animals proper care, and manage ongoing projects at the farm. To facilitate growth and progress, I break ongoing projects up into steps each day so that it always feels as though I am moving in the right direction. If I try to do too much too quick, it can quickly feel insurmountable. I have wants and needs, but my focus must remain with my needs so that I can achieve my wants, one step at a time.

Laughter is a good indication, in my opinion, of lower levels of stress. If I’m not laughing, I’m too serious, and if I’m too serious, I’m not enjoying what I’m doing. If this happens, and it does, I try to slow everything down. Time doesn’t slow, so we must make the most of every minute we have to live on this earth. I slow my rate of work, pause my plans, slow the heart rate and relax. Humor, in times like these, can counteract life’s stressors and help me to recoup. It’s not always self-centered. I find just as much joy making someone else laugh or watching them laugh. It’s contagious and a staple of family life, I believe, in our region.

This past weekend, my father and daughter, spent time copying each other’s laughs. We’ve dubbed dad’s laugh as, “the dying horse” laugh as it is a long, windy, drawn out laugh with a bit of wheezing. It was deeply amusing to watch my daughter squint her eyes, throw her head back, and imitate the laugh. The power of positivity. Imagine if each of our actions were governed by the desire to have them emulated by others to bring about laughter, smiles, happiness, and love. I aspire to do this with the people around me and I am constantly reminded of this when I look at my beautiful and intelligent children.

Recently, I read a poem/speech delivered by Paul Harvey in 1978 in a speech to the Future Farmers of America Convention. One stanza reads:

“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.'” So God made a farmer.

This poem, with its strong Christian imagery, embodies the importance of laughter in the family unit. For members of a small family farm, working day and night to bring something positive to the Restigouche region, the mental image of the hay bale as the metaphorical family resonates with our souls. Farming is all about bonds. We see them in stewardship of the land, in loving and laughing embraces, in farmer and implement, with the proximity to livestock, and between generations. Whenever I hold my son or daughter’s hands while we walk around the farm, I am reminded of the blessing they are to me and I am motivated to create a better future for them with opportunities on the family farm.

Finally, for all you coffee/tea drinkers here’s a little cow joke for you. What do you call a cow that has just had a calf? You can answer in the comment box below.